Descarte And Kant

In Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes is skeptical about all of his current beliefs and even questions his own existence, as well as the existence of extended objects. However, his skepticism decreases as the Meditations on First Philosophy progress. Hume, on the other hand, appears to grow increasingly skeptical throughout An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. However, he finds what he believes to be a solution to his skepticism. Although both Descartes and Hume escape their skepticism, the means by which they do so are problematic.

In the Meditations on First Philosophy Descartes is skeptical about all of his former beliefs, such as the belief that he himself exists and the belief in the existence of extended objects. He

According to Descartes, all ideas/perceptions that are clear and distinct are true/indubitable. However, clear and distinct ideas cannot be proven to be true until it is proven that God exists, for if God did not exist, an evil genius could be causing him to believe things to be true when they are not. However, if God does exist, it must be proven that God is not a deceiver. Descartes argued that, until he knew that God exists and that God is not a deceiver, he could not be certain of anything else, aside from the fact that he himself exists.

Finally, Descartes argued that deceit is related to imperfection. Therefore, God could not be deceitful since he is supposedly perfect. However, perhaps it is only us, who are imperfect beings, who judge deceit as arising from imperfection. Perhaps deception is not truly an imperfection. If such was the case, then God could still be a deceiver.

decided that he must search for something upon which he could be certain, thus rejecting everything that he doubted. He began by questioning his own existence, but concluded that he thinks, therefore he must exist. Even if he was being deceived by God or by an evil genius, he must still exist, for it would not be possible for him to be simultaneously nonexistent and deceived.

Not only is there the problem of interaction pertaining to the causal connection of mind and body, but certain areas of the foundation of Descartes’ previous arguments are problematic as well. First, Descartes concluded that human error arises when a judgment is passed on something of which there is a lack of knowledge. If this is so, then perhaps it is in his lack of knowledge that Descartes came to believe in God’s existence. If Descartes, as well as anyone else who believes in God’s existence, lacked knowledge of which they were unaware before they made such a judgment, then perhaps they falsely jumped to the conclusion that God exists.

Hume also questions the connection between cause and effect. Though we may witness the effects of certain causes, we do not know what connects the effect to the cause. Hume concludes:

In terms of our mind and body, Hume argued that:

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